Below is some information that you may find useful regarding grants, which may be available, and planning regulations for your MuckBuster® and Flexibuster™ green energy solution.
UK Planning
The MUCKBUSTER® does NOT require planning permission but farms in the UK will need to apply for an agricultural exemption by completing a form.
Regarding the FLEXIBUSTER™, for private dwellings, the householder planning application should be completed. We will provide the necessary technical specifications for this process. For a commercial installation, a full application for planning is required. We will provide the necessary technical specifications for this process.
UK Environmental Regulations
Waste Exemption Licenses
T24 – Anaerobic digestion at premises used for agriculture and burning of resultant biogas
This exemption allows farmers to anaerobically digest manures, slurries and vegetation on their farms to produce digestate that can be used as a fertiliser or soil conditioner. This reduces the need to use inorganic fertilisers. The anaerobic digestion (AD) process also produces biogas, which can be burnt to generate energy, either for use on the farm or for export to the national grid.
T25 – Anaerobic digestion at premises not used for agriculture and burning of resultant biogas
This exemption allows the treatment of food and other biodegradable wastes by anaerobic digestion to produce a digestate which can be used for providing benefit to land. The gas produced must be used for generating energy.
Other relevant documents, relating to the Quality Protocol for the digestate and mulch: U10 – Spreading waste on agricultural land to confer benefit, U11 – Spreading waste on non-agricultural land to confer benefit.
Please consult the UK Environmental Agency website for further information. www.environment-agency.gov.uk
UK Grants
FEED-IN TARIFFS
The 2016/2017 FiT Payment Rate for AD (with total installed capacity of 250kW or less) is £0.0739/kWh.
USA
Biogas incentives
Currently, the regulations for renewable energy incentives are state-dependent. The federal government of the USA is discussing the possibility to enact a nationwide Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) in the near future, which is to regulate a nation-wide requirement for increased energy production to come from renewable sources, but at the moment 29 out of the 50 states enact their own, state-specific RPS. Under RPS regulations, states may give out Renewable Energy Certifications (REC’s) for every produced unit of renewable energy. REC’s can be sold to e.g. energy suppliers for extra revenue.
States may further choose to define certain RPS carve-outs, regulating the requirement of certain percentages of the total RPS to originate from specific renewable sources. For example: North Carolina enacts a biogas carve-out of 1-1.4%, meaning that 1-1.4% of the RPS regulated renewable energy requirement needs to originate from a biogas-based energy source. Although the percentage may seem low, biogas based REC’s in North Carolina are worth three times the amount of REC’s from the general pool.